The Calumet & Hecla Mining Company has also an extensive pumping plant at its stamp mills, which are located on the shore of Torch Lake, about four and a half miles from the mine.  There are located here 3 pumping engines; two of which have a capacity of 20,000,000 gallons a day, and a third 10,000,000 gallons a day.  The water is elevated between 50 and 60 feet, and is used for treating the stamped rock.  Two of the engines are of the inverted compound beam and fly-wheel type; and the third is a geared pump, which has a horizontal double acting plunger, 36 inches in diameter, by six foot stroke, driven from the crank of a spur-wheel shaft.

The spur wheel is 12 feet diameter, 24 inches face, and contains 96 teeth.  The pinion engaging with it has 27 teeth, and is fast on the fly-wheel shaft of a Brown horizontal engine, having a cylinder 18 inches in diameter, and a stroke of four feet.  The steam pressure used is 110 pounds per square inch; and the engine has a Buckley condenser.  The pump valves are annular, of brass, faced with rubber, and close by brass spiral spiral springs.  Their external diameter is six inches, and the lift is confined to 1/2 inch.  There are 91 suction and 91 delivery valves at each end of the pump.  The maximum speed of this pump is twenty-six double strokes a minute.

The largest of the compound engines is named Ontario, and has a vertical low pressure cylinder 36 inches in diameter, and an inclined high pressure cylinder 171/2 inches in diameter; the stroke of both being five feet.  These are inverted over a beam, or rocker; and the pistons are connected to opposite ends of the same.

The beam attachment of the main connecting rod is made to a pin located above and midway between the pins for piston connections.

The main center of the beam and the crank shaft have their pedestals in the same horizontal plane.  The throw of the crank is five feet.  There are two differential plunger pumps, having upper plungers 20 inches in diameter, and lower plungers 33 inches in diameter, with a stroke of 5 feet.  These pumps are vertical, and placed beneath the engine bed-plate, to which they are attached by strong brackets.  The pump under the low pressure cylinder is worked directly from its cross-head by an extension of the piston rod.  The other pump is worked by a trunk connection from the opposite end of the beam.  The radius of the beam is but fifty inches, but the connections to it are made very long by links.

The lower plungers work through sleeves in diaphragms located in the center of the pumps.  In these diaphragms, the openings for the delivery valves are made.  These valves are similar in construction to those previously described for the horizontal plunger pump.  Their diameter, however, is but 51/4 inches, instead of 6 inches, and there are 72 suction and 72 delivery valves for each pump.  It will readily be seen that the action of these pumps is similar to that of the bucket and plunger; each pump having one suction and two deliveries for each revolution of the engine.  The Ontario is designed to run at a maximum speed of 33 revolutions a minute; and the service required of it is to run regularly 144 hours a week, without a stop, which is performed with the utmost regularity.